A Warrington man turned to crime in an effort to improve his grades while he was enrolled last year as a student at Temple University Ambler Campus in Upper Dublin.

Edwin T. Kim, 31, of the 200 block of Lincoln Drive, on Tuesday admitted hacking into the university’s electronic grading system and changing his grades.

Kim, apologizing for his actions, received a two-year probation sentence after pleading guilty to a charge of tampering with records. He will also have to pay a $300 fine.

“He took full responsibility for his actions and made no excuses,” said county Assistant District Attorney Steven Bunn, who added that the university “washed their hands of him” after the hacking was discovered.

Temple uses an electronic grading system in which only instructors, using a sign-on identification and password, can enter grades into the system

A professor who taught a cost accounting course at the Ambler campus during the Spring 2011 semester discovered that she was locked out of the system when she went to put in the final grades for her students on May 13. In reviewing the grades that were in the system and comparing them to her personal records, she discovered that only Kim’s grades had been changed, going from an “F” to an “A-.”

Two other professors who had Kim in their classes (financial management and law and American society) that semester reviewed his grades and learned that the Fs that he had received from them also were upgraded to As.

Obtaining auditing logs for the grading system, authorities were able to trace the changes back to Kim’s home computer and to a workplace computer. Authorities learned that Kim had accessed six grading accounts, three belonging to professors he had in the spring semester and three belonging to the professors in courses he had in the summer 2011 semester that had just started.

Questioned by authorities, Kim said he began changing his grades after learning that he was failing his law and American society course.

Kim said he purchased a “key logger” on the Internet. This device captures key strokes on a computer. Installing the device in a university computer in the administration office, he removed it several days later after it had captured the identification numbers and passwords of his professors. He was then able to hack into the grading system and change his grades, according to the criminal complaint.